Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

Picking The Right University

I given the awesome idea to do this post by another fellow blogger Souparni who has an amazing blog that I have recently been following. She has only recently started out and it would be awesome if everyone would support her blog by reading and following it!

So this post is mainly going to be about picking the perfect university for you. As a lot of you know I am taking a gap year before going to university but I still need to find out a lot about universities and courses before the end of the year. So I’ve been doing a lot of research and thought I should share it because I know the struggle and if this can help someone else going through something similar that’s awesome. So Souparni actually asked me to do a post on both picking a university and picking university courses but I’ll do the latter next week and focus on picking the right university for todays post.

Picking The Right University

Price– so one very important thing about picking a university is the tuition and accommodation fees. Of course if you can afford any university it’s all well and good but if not you really have to look hard to find countries that offer more affordable prices. From what I’ve found so far Germany is incredibly affordable and so are most European countries except England which is quite expensive. So instead of going to the usual places most people go to (aka England, Australia and the US) try to look at other countries too which are extremely affordable plus it would be like a long adventure to be in a random foreign country! I found this site very helpful in finding universities all around the world so go check it out for more information!

Courses– So as everyone knows university/college is difficult so don’t over do it with the classes you take. Keep it minimal but also make sure you’re taking classes that you enjoy not just boring ones that make you question your life.

Accommodation- A lot (almost all) universities offer both on-campus and off-campus accommodation but you really should make sure you’re getting a room/apartment you’re comfortable in. For someone like me who prefers to spend a lot of time alone a random roommate is probably not a great idea and so ideally I would go for a room for just me. However if you’re an extrovert you should totally go for getting a random roommate who you can hang out with. Just basically what I’m trying to say is get a room that you know you’ll be comfortable in for 3-4 months at least. Don’t try out a roommate if you’re easily irritated or something like that because even though it’s good to get out of your comfort zone university dorms may not be the perfect place to do this. Remember you’ll be under a crazy amount of stress and you may end up doing/saying something you’ll later regret. So go to the university site and check out all the different types of accommodation they offer and email them and bug them if you have to because I mean you’re paying them a lot of money and you deserve to be comfortable.

Food– Okay so if you eat everything and don’t really have a problem with food and aren’t too picky this probably won’t be such a problem. However, for vegetarians, vegans or just picky eaters in general you should really make sure you know what food you’ll be getting in the university and it probably wouldn’t hurt to learn some cooking before you get to university.

Information– Make sure you know everything about the universities you’re interested in and make sure you have a bunch of back up plans because trust me you will need them. Make sure you know everything about the place you’re going even if it means emailing them to find out things you want to know. It will really help you when you get there to know these things, even the little things you don’t think matter.

Weather– For someone from Kenya weather is a problem for me personally because I haven’t ever really lived in a cold place. If you’re like me and haven’t really experienced any harsh weather make sure you prepare for it if you’re going to a different country to study in.

Cost Of Living- Some places may offer cheaper education/accommodation but the cost of living may be really high there so just make sure you can afford it before getting there.

Grades Required– Make sure you apply to a bunch of universities, even some that have very low grade boundaries because unless you’re psychic and know exactly what you are going to get a lot of things may go wrong and you may end up getting grades you really didn’t expect. I mean it would be awesome if you do well but all I’m saying is have a lot of back ups just in case.

I hope this post helps you out and if anyone has any more questions please comment and I’ll try to help out the best I can!

Next week I’ll be talking about picking courses for university because this post got longer than I expected so be sure to read that one for more information.

Hey! this was some very good information, such a great idea on your part since you are expecting to attend one yourself. This will be very helpful for first time college students and decisions they have to come to terms with before the semester starts. It is a huge deal as to what school someone starts off with and so they definitely want to make a great decision for their future! well written blog post!

Thank you so much! And yeah since I was doing all the research myself anyway I thought at least this way I could help others out. As you said what school you start off at makes a huge impact on your life and picking the right university can be really tough!

Really enjoying your blog and this post is so helpful and informative! I’ve recently started posting about beginning university and sharing my experiences as it is such a big deal to many young people’s lives. Really good post!